Microsoft kept its options open Tuesday on whether it will appeal a landmark antitrust ruling and record $613 million fine imposed by European competition authorities that an EU court upheld last month.
Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, visiting France to promote innovation, declined to say whether the software maker would contest the ruling to its last level, the European Court of Justice.
The Sept. 17 ruling by the EU's Court of First Instance means "there is a clear set of guidance for us, and we move on in that environment," he told lawmakers.
Nobody's talking yet, but a new rash of reports are beginning to make it seem like the breakup of Bungie and Microsoft may be more than just a silly Internet rumor. Such a relevation would come as a huge shock not only to Xbox 360 fans, but the industry at large as well. Together, the two companies have created one of the largest game franchises in history, and just came off the biggest entertainment launch ever with Halo 3.
Rumors began to circulate Monday afternoon after blogger Jacob Metcalf posted to the Digital Joystick blog saying the two companies had parted ways over disagreements surrounding the Halo franchise. Apparently, Bungie wanted to move on and Microsoft wasn't quite letting them, according to Metcalf.
Filling a gap in its strategy to make sure its business customers are paying for each installed copy of Windows XP, Microsoft yesterday announced the Get Genuine Windows Agreement.
GGWA is aimed at increasing Windows XP licensing compliance among businesses. Microsoft apparently believes that some customers misunderstood their agreements, and were installing full copies of XP on corporate computers, which is illegal, rather than upgrading the OS, which the license allows.
Mis-licensing appears to be a common occurrence, according to a Q&A on Microsoft's Website with Cori Hartje, director of Microsoft's Genuine Software Initiative.
Opening up to developers, Microsoft is releasing its .Net Framework libraries under the Microsoft Reference License, which allows viewing of source code but not modification or redistribution, the company said on Wednesday.
The release gives developers the opportunity to better understand the inner workings of the framework's source code, Microsoft said. Microsoft's efforts fall under the company's Shared Source initiative, which allows for sharing of source code; Shared Source has been viewed as Microsoft's answer to open source, in which users can view selected source code.
For the second time in two months, Microsoft has rolled out fixes to improve Windows Vista's speed and reliability.
The four separate updates, available now for download from the vendor's Web site, address several operating system performance and stability problems, deal with a dozen Universal Serial Bus issues, improve Windows Media Player, and patch Media Center.
Although Microsoft has put Windows Vista SP1 in the hands of some testers, it has said it will continue to update the original Vista -- dubbed "RTM" for "release to manufacturing" -- even as it puts SP1 through its paces. Seven weeks ago, it issued a pair of updates that tackled numerous problems, offering them as optional items through Windows Update last month.
Microsoft said Tuesday that it had acquired comparison shopping site Jellyfish, which allows users to compare and buy products, and then get cash back for purchases made through the site.
The site will remain separate from other products by Microsoft, but act as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Redmond company. Terms of the deal, which was struck on Thursday, were not immediately disclosed.
"We think the technology has some interesting potential applications as we continue to invest heavily in shopping and commerce as a key component of Live Search," Microsoft's Search and Advertising head Alex Gounares said in a statement.
"ISVs lose approximately half their realized revenue each year due to piracy and copying. In other words, a software company that generates $10 million in revenues could experience losses in the $5 million plus range." That sobering fact, according to Microsoft, is what prompted it to develop its Software Licensing and Protections Services 2008 program.
Yesterday Microsoft announced the availability of its SLP Services suite of programs, meant to help software developers and vendors control illegal use of their software, thereby maximizing profits.
Wouldn't it be nice to pick up the phone on your desk and, without dialing any numbers, say "Joe in accounting," and have your phone not only dial Joe, but bring up the information you have stored for him in Outlook? That's the idea behind Response Point, Microsoft's answer to the antiquated phone systems that populate the offices of small businesses everywhere.
Redmond announced today that Response Point has been released to manufacturing, and by the end of the year systems will "definitely be available" for purchase, according to Jeff Smith, a senior product manager for Response Point.
The improved security in Microsoft's newest software products may leave some security researchers looking elsewhere for work.
That was the message that some security professionals took away from BlueHat, an event last week on Microsoft's campus that allows security researchers to mingle with Microsoft developers.
"One of the messages we got was to look in the future for [our products] to not be so successful," said Pedram Amini, manager of security research at 3Com's Tipping Point division. That's because Microsoft is applying a lot of the technologies used by security researchers in-house, making the third-party techniques not as effective, he said.
Microsoft has revealed more of its software-plus-services plan to
better compete with online competitors, announcing new hosted services
targeted at enterprise customers and small businesses.
The company's enterprise product roster is poised to get a makeover with its first hosted services for larger enterprises. Until now, Microsoft has primarily focused its online services initiative on consumers and small businesses.
Microsoft's Online Services for Business are available to large businesses with 5,000 or more seats, and feature hosted versions of Exchange e-mail, SharePoint document management, and Office Communications.